In today's release of November's FX trading volumes by ICE, the road to recovery is beginning with an increase over

IntercontinentalExchange has today released its volumes across all asset classes and products for November 2013, with FX trading activity showing a further dip in average daily volumes (ADV) to 24,109 contracts, compared with October’s 20,440, which although represents a significant increase when comparing November’s results to the prior month, still stands 3% short of November 2012’s 24,945 contracts.

With 2012 having been a year of protracted volumes for a vast majority of firms internationally, ICE’s result for November this year remains lower than that of a very lacklustre period one year ago. The achievement of increased performance during November in terms of FX ADVs over that of October is, whilst a step in the positive direction, indicative that there is considerable ground to cover, as October’s volumes were 45% down compared with September’s 33,863 contracts.

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The overall pattern which has emerged for many market participants during 2013 has been pockmarked by the first few months of the year being a time of very high volumes, in many cases record figures, and a very pronounced slowdown during the third quarter of the year. ICE’s FX division’s results certainly reflect this dynamic.

Futures Volumes 5% Up YoY

ICE’s ADV for futures and options was 3.37 million contracts, up 5% from the prior November. Year-to-date through November, ADV for oil and agriculture were up 9% and 6% respectively versus the prior year, and total ADV was in line with the prior year at 3.40 million contracts.

In terms of financial and strategic statistics, ICE will pay a cash dividend of $0.65 per share on December 31 this year to shareholders on record as of December 16, and the company expects that it will classify certain of NYXT’s business lines to discontinue operations in the company’s financial statements beginning in the first quarter of 2014.